ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Public Health Policy
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1587987
This article is part of the Research TopicInclusive Health Communication: Strategies for Equitable Information DisseminationView all 13 articles
Nudging Epidemic Policy Compliance: Experimental Insights into Message Framing
Provisionally accepted
- Nanjing University, Nanjing, China
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Objective: Achieving widespread voluntary public compliance is critical for effective epidemic management. This study investigates how different message-framing strategies influence individuals' willingness to comply with public health measures during a simulated epidemic scenario. Methods: Using a randomized 2×2 experimental design, we tested the relative effectiveness of four framing conditions-gain-private, loss-private, gain-social, and loss-social-on compliance intentions. Participants (N=391) were randomly assigned to one of these conditions or a no-framing control group. Compliance willingness was assessed through self-reported intentions to adhere to recommended preventive behaviors. Results: Framed messages significantly increased compliance intentions compared to the control condition. Among framing strategies, the loss-social frame (emphasizing negative societal consequences of noncompliance) demonstrated the strongest effect, followed by gain-private, gain-social, and loss-private frames. Pairwise comparisons revealed important interactions: gain-framing was more effective within private motivational contexts, whereas loss-framing was particularly compelling within social contexts. Critically, loss-social messages were significantly superior to loss-private ones, while gain-social and gain-private messages performed similarly. Conclusion: Strategic message framing effectively enhances public compliance during epidemic crises, with loss-social framing emerging as the most potent approach. These findings offer critical insights for policymakers and health communicators, recommending targeted use of loss-social messaging to optimize public adherence to epidemic prevention guidelines.
Keywords: Public compliance, Health Policy, framing effect, behavioral public policy, nudging
Received: 05 Mar 2025; Accepted: 10 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Biao, Xi, Gu and Yidilisi. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Patiman Yidilisi, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China
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